It was still dark when Soneri came down for breakfast. The night before when he got back, he found the table still set. Sante had saved some vegetable stew for him, and when the commissario saw it arrive with an overturned plate on top to keep it warm, memories came flooding back of his mother in her dressing gown, of trains running late and of a house immersed in silence with the family already in bed. He had hoped to find the same peace and stability in the valley in the Apennines where his forebears had lived season after season, enduring the snows of winter and heat of summer, clearing the juniper bushes from the land and hauling timber down from the woods.
“In middle age, everyone yearns to return to the place they left when they were young to make their way in the world,” Sante intoned.
For Sante, the world was the city. Anyone who moved away from the valley was a displaced person, and Soneri was coming round to this point of view. That was why he had come back, and now, as he stood looking through the windows of the Scoiattolo at the wooded slopes of Montelupo capped by woolly mist, he felt the tug of that mountain which had been the focus of so much attention in recent days. In a short while he would set off and clamber up its steep spine like a tiny, exploring parasite. He was intent on taking full advantage of the daylight hours and was only waiting for dawn to break. Sante had prepared a box with a few slices of bread, some shavings of parmesan and a few thin slices of prosciutto. He put the box in a shoulder bag and got on his way, aware that he was retracing the steps of his father, his grandfather and of who knows how many others.
The ascent up the path from the village left him out of breath, but he was soon enough at the reservoir. Patches of mist drifted around him and trailed off all the way down to the village. He took the Boldara path, walking for another half an hour through a tunnel of branches on a mattress of fallen leaves, not looking back until he came to an opening in the woods. The houses were far off now, in a deep crevice where it seemed that they had ended up after falling down the mountainside, like all the other things which had tumbled down from the heights. He left the path and ventured into the woods, struggling with the undergrowth and slipping on the leaves. He spent some time probing the trunks on slopes where the tree fellers had been active, but he found nothing to interest him. The ground still had marks of having been disturbed, so it was clear that someone had passed that way not long before. He followed the footprints of the roe deer and the tracks of the boar for almost two hours until, in the shadow of a trunk nestling into the mountainside, he discovered a colony of “horn of plenty” mushrooms. Dark coloured and with a tapering stalk, they had a sinister appearance, but they made good eating for someone who knew how they required to be cooked.
All of a sudden, the light faded and the wood was shrouded in a dense mist. Soneri decided it was time to make his way back, but as he did so he became aware of the faint squelch of footsteps sinking into the damp leaves behind him. From time to time, the snap of a broken branch could be heard, seemingly from someone picking his way over dead wood in the shade of the beech trees. Soneri continued on his way, choosing carefully where to put his feet so as not to make the least inroad into the profound silence which seemed to amplify the slightest sound. He walked gingerly through a copse of oak trees, where the dry leaves still hanging on the branches made the surroundings even more gloomy. Somewhere lower down, he heard a sharp noise, the quick, alarmed movement of a prey that knew it was being hunted. He thought he made out the outline of a human being, barely glimpsed through the foliage. Perhaps someone had only just realised how close Soneri was and was vanishing into the mist, leaving no more than a tantalising shadow.
Soneri followed the course of the Macchiaferro stream until he emerged into an area of hornbeam and chestnut, ripe for the autumnal pruning. His mind was still filled with the image of that figure, little more than a shadow distorted by the dampness, which had made a momentary appearance before being swallowed up by the mist. As he turned onto the Boldara road, he recalled what he had been told about Albanians and others who supposedly moved about the mountainside. People spoke of them as a menace, in terms which made them the modern equivalent of the ancient fear of wild animals, lightning and hailstones. He took a rest at the reservoir and in the failing afternoon light sat down to enjoy his parmesan. He was taken aback when he realised how meagre were the fruits of his day’s labour, no more than a few mushrooms, all of the “horn of plenty” variety, maybe a couple of ounces in total which would be reduced to half that when cooked.
Once he had eaten the cheese, he turned to the prosciutto. His flask contained a quarter litre of the Barbera which Sante had commended. He gazed up at Montelupo, which resembled an enormous, sweating beast, and thought back to the periods of rest permitted by his father during the hunting season when, seated on a rock or on a tree trunk, they partook of a frugal meal together. Everything was different now, except for Montelupo with its rocky outgrowth. His gaze shifted from mountain to mountain, each one well known to him, until his inspection came to a stop lower down, on the road leading to Villa del Greppo. An ambulance was making its way slowly along the road, and Soneri was reminded of Rivara’s words: either it was going slowly because it had no-one on board or because the person on board was beyond help. Two cars followed close behind, and there appeared to be an unusual level of activity around the villa itself. Soneri took a sip of his wine and decided to go straight home, following the slope of the hill. Tiredness overcame him the moment he reached the plain, but by then he was only a stone’s throw from the Scoiattolo, where Sante was pacing up and down on the courtyard, scarcely noticing his return. When he did see him, he looked at him with a distracted air. The commissario returned the gaze, but Sante continued staring straight ahead, like a blind man.
“All I have to show for a morning’s work is about a quarter kilo of ‘horns of plenty’.”
“Is that what you call them? Do you know the names we use round here for that mushroom? ‘The black chanterelle’, or even ‘the trumpet of death’. That’s a better name after what has happened to Palmiro.”
“What has happened to him? Has he gone missing again?”
“This time it’s for good. This morning they found him hanging from a wooden beam in his loggia.”
The commissario made no reply. He felt an instinctive need to reason, to put this news into some sort of context but he resisted it. “Do you think it was suicide, or is there more to it?”
Sante’s grimace indicated that he did not know. “They say he hammered a huge nail into the wood, tied a rope round it and hanged himself. They found the hammer on the windowsill. He had contrived his own gallows.”
“That takes guts,” the commissario murmured.
“Palmiro never lacked guts. Once he’d made up his mind, no-one could shift him. He never allowed anything to stand in his way.”
“He could have let the cold on Montelupo do the job,” Soneri said, while images of the stolen coffin and the sound of shots in the woods played on his mind. Against his better judgement, curiosity was getting the upper hand and he began to put the various facts together. “What do you think made him do it?” he asked Sante.
Sante stopped pacing back and forth and stood still, his back turned to the commissario. He shrugged.
“You told me he was a decisive man, always sure of himself. Someone like that must have had a good reason for killing himself,” Soneri said.
Sante turned slowly towards him, embarrassment written clearly on his face. “Who can say? Problems with his business…” The worries welling up inside Sante prevented him from expressing himself more clearly.
“The salame factory was not going well?”
The only response was another awkward gesture, a clumsy wave as though in an attempt to grab hold of some notion that was proving as elusive as a troublesome fly.
“There are so many rumours in this village. Who really knows what was going on in the Rodolfi household? This place is buzzing with gossip. You can draw your own conclusion. I’ve got a hard enough job keeping on top of my own business.”
There was a tone of pain in the last words which Soneri sensed conveyed some deep, personal bitterness. For a few moments the two men stood facing each other in silence until Ida called to her husband from the doorway of the dining room. She greeted the commissario, but without her customary warmth. He heard the couple exchange some words as they moved inside.
He went up to his room to change. As he came back out, his eyes fell on the basket with the “trumpets of death”. He opened it and stared long and hard at the dark mushrooms with their long stems and wide-brimmed caps, not unlike instruments played by the town band. They had the eerie appearance of creatures that come out at dusk in northern climes, or in the dank parts of graveyards. They seemed to bear with them evil tidings, and troubled him so much that he tossed them into a ditch.
It was already growing dark when he went into the village. He saw Maini walking in the piazza, but before he could catch up with him he heard his name called out. It was the mayor coming quickly out of the pharmacy as though he had been lying in wait for him.
“So now something has happened,” he began. “It’s not just gossip any more.”
“A suicide is a private deed. The most private of all,” Soneri said.
The mayor was taken aback by this response, leaving the commissario with the strong impression that he did not consider the deed at all private.
“It’s not an ordinary suicide. It couldn’t be if the man who kills himself is Palmiro Rodolfi.”
“In the face of death, we are all equal. As also in the face of despair.”
“We’ve got to understand what drove Palmiro to despair. In my view, it was because of his grandson,” the mayor said.
“His grandson?”
“He’s turning out to be a problem. He thinks of nothing but big, flashy cars. He spends money like water and won’t do any work. And then lately…” The mayor lowered his voice to a whisper, as though he were in church. “It seems he has started taking drugs.”
The commissario thought of the third-generation decadence, corrupted by wealth from birth. “Who found him?”
“His daughter-in-law. She used to go up to his room every morning to check that everything was alright. She loved him like a father.”
“So where was his son?”
“It seems it was he who cut him down.”
“Seems?”
The mayor spread out his hands. “That’s what I’ve heard, but whether that’s exactly what happened…”
“Have the carabinieri questioned Paride?”
“The maresciallo told me that by the time he got there, Paride had already left. They’re looking for him, but there’s no sign of him yet. His wife says that he’s gone to their cabin in the woods, distraught.”
“Did anyone see him?”
“Apparently so, but I couldn’t tell you who.”
Soneri lit a cigar to give himself time to think. The mayor had the same vaguely embarrassed expression he had noted on Sante, but perhaps it was really fear. “So what can I do? I don’t get the impression that there’s anything to investigate, except why did he do it.”
“That’s the question everybody’s asking,” the mayor said.
“In other words, it’s a matter for priests or psychologists. Not my line at all.”
The mayor made no move. The fog continued to swirl behind him on the far side of the piazza.
“Perhaps you are better informed than I am,” Soneri said.
“No, no. I don’t know a thing,” the mayor said, but he spoke in the guilt-ridden tone of voice the commissario had heard countless times during interrogations in the questura. “All I am asking you to do is consult the maresciallo. I’m not asking you to make any commitments. A courtesy call, that’s all.”
“A soul in torment,” Maini said, indicating the mayor as he walked off, with his crumpled, outsize raincoat flapping around him.
“I don’t understand what he wants me to do,” the commissario said.
“Everybody in the village wants to understand.”
“Understand!” Soneri shook his head in bewilderment. “It seems to me you already know quite a lot. Maybe you’re all simply afraid,” he said, realising as he did so that he had made a distinction between himself and the rest. He had been aware of the limits of his relationship with them, but now it seemed like a barrier he could not cross. In some ways, he felt liberated from an ambiguity which had become increasingly cumbersome.
Maini pretended not to hear the commissario’s words, the common reaction of mountain people to complicated sentiments. Everything would take its course, but every word spoken could be translated into another element of distrust. “He killed himself like the shopkeeper, Capelli,” he said at last.
Soneri had heard about the case, but he could no longer remember the details. His amnesia reinforced his sense of being an outsider.
“He too hanged himself from a wooden beam,” Maini said.
“He was a ruined man,” the commissario said, grasping at some vague memory.
“It was the gambling. After the war he made some money, but it went to his head.”
“Did he and Palmiro know each other?”
“That’s the point. They were good friends.”
At that moment, the commissario’s mobile rang. “Angela, could you call me back in five minutes?”
The poor reception meant that he heard no more than a metallic murmur as he switched off his phone. Without either of them suggesting it, Maini and he moved into the Rivara bar. Rivara himself watched them take a seat, and joined in the conversation. “He took his own life in the same way as Capelli,” he said, and then, turning to the commissario as though to a casual stranger, he added, “you know who I mean, the owner of the cheese shop.”
Soneri felt the barrier between him and the villagers grow ever more impassable. “Even the letters they left say the same things,” Maini said.
“Nobody knows who was the first to read Capelli’s letter. Everyone knew he couldn’t read or write, and that made it child’s play for them to cheat him with the invoices,” the barman said.
“At that time the maresciallo said he believed that Capelli had had it prepared some time before he hanged himself, but there are others who think that it was his creditors who wrote it.”
“What does Palmiro’s letter say?” Soneri said.
Rivara stretched out his arms, then leant forward and lowered his voice. “One of my regulars who knows a police officer says it was pretty succinct. ‘Bury me up on Montelupo, under a juniper bush. That’s where I want to be.’ Not another word.”
“The same as Capelli, who wanted to be taken up to Montelupo, but his wife had him buried in the cemetery, partly because the Comune got involved, and partly because love of money was the only love that kept them together,” Maini said.
“Both men loved Montelupo. It was for them the whole world. They used to take their sheep to graze up there, up as far as the big house at Becco. The two of them and the guy known as the Woodsman.”
“Ah yes, the famous Woodsman. Now he’s the only survivor of that trio,” Maini said.
“Because he didn’t make any money. Money has been the downfall of so many people,” Rivara chimed in.
“Capelli, on the other hand…” Maini said, seemingly rummaging about in his memory, “Capelli started out collecting milk from the farms in his hand cart, then he became a producer of cheese and got other people to do the hard work while he drove about in a Fiat 1500, wearing a tie and selling whole cheeses in the city. It was a huge risk, but he pulled it off.”
“The fact is when you come into money all of a sudden, it can be the ruination of you. You think it’ll never stop coming,” Rivara said.
“It wasn’t gambling that did for him so much as the paperwork and his sheer incompetence at it,” Maini said. “He knew how much he could afford to lose and he stuck to that, but when they invited him to sign for things instead of paying in cash, he trusted them and they stripped the shirt off his back.”
“Downright ignorance is always at the root of it,” Rivara said. “Once upon a time they cheated you with phoney invoices, now it’s with promissory notes from the bank, shares and bonds, that kind of thing. They tell you to buy and you end up with drawers full of waste paper.”
“It’s the same old story, the same swindle over and over again,” Maini agreed.
“The fat cats devour the mice. Let’s not forget that Capelli in his day — ”
“Right after the war,” Maini nodded.
Rivara threw back his head. “That wasn’t the only time. He did a deal with the Fascists so no detachment of Blackshirts ever went without parmesan to sprinkle on their minestrone. In return, he was left in peace to work the black market, selling his goods to anybody and everybody.”
“And he made money hand over fist.”
“It was a dirty business, but it always is,” Maini said. “With money and the right friends, you can stuff justice.”
“What about the Woodsman?” Soneri said.
Rivara laughed. “He had no head for business, and still doesn’t. He’s at home among the trees with his axe and rifle. That’s how he came by the name. He has never moved away from the Madoni hills. He lives there on his own — in abandoned houses that are slowly falling apart. They’ll come down altogether one of these winters.”
“The original owners all moved away, to Turin, Milan or Parma,” Maini said.
“Now he’s as wild as the boar. The other two were as bad as he was, but their instinct was to go after money instead of wild animals. They made their fortunes, but then they hanged themselves.”
Soneri lit another cigar, while the other two stared at him as though he were performing a conjuring trick.
“Capelli was the sharpest of the three. He was already a rich man at thirty. In the retail market in Parma, he would shift cheese by the ton, all deals done in advance. He had a nose for the business, had the patience to wait for the right moment to buy and sell,” Maini said.
“In the last years,” Rivara said, “he never actually touched cheese. He had his flunkeys to see to that side of things. He stuck to his office, but when you move away from the world you know and handle nothing but paperwork, you’re done for.”
“That’s right,” Maini said. “It was all that form filling that finished him.”
Stefano, Rivara’s son, came in, nodded in their direction and sat apart, on his own. He had nothing to say, it seemed, but all of a sudden he jumped to his feet and exclaimed, “That lorry, the one that was apparently lost yesterday evening, it loaded up after all, and went off this morning in the direction of the autostrada.”
Rivara stopped wiping the bar and said, “He must have been held up by the weather, and no doubt had a deadline to meet.”
Stefano shook his head doubtfully. “What about the other two? Were they in a rush as well?”
Rivara and Maini looked at each other in puzzlement, but said nothing.
“This story of the lorries, it’s an odd business,” the commissario said, in an attempt to keep the discussion going, but no-one had any inclination to break the silence until Maini changed the subject. “How did you get on? Did you fill a basket?”
“I only got a few ‘trumpets of death’.”
“I don’t like them.”
“Mushrooms in general or ‘trumpets of death’ specifically?”
“Neither.”
“I can understand why, with a name like that. But they’re very good,” the commissario said.
“Things that grow in dark places, in the shadows,” Maini said.
“Somebody must like them, considering the trouble I had to find any at all.”
Maini shrugged. He had nothing else to say.
The mobile rang, relieving the embarrassed silence which had fallen over the group.
“I’ve waited a quarter of an hour.” Angela sounded annoyed.
“We were talking about Palmiro.”
“Again? Were you not supposed to be out looking for mushrooms?”
“He’s hanged himself.”
Angela did not speak for a few seconds. “I would never have expected that. It does not seem in his nature.”
“Nobody expected it. It’s a very odd business, and I can’t make head nor tail of it.”
“Well, if you don’t understand it, and you’re from there…”
“I used to be from here,” the commissario corrected her. “So much has changed, it’s as if I’d never lived here.”
“It must be terrible to feel like an outsider in the place you come from. What about the people you know, your friends?”
A sudden, deep unease and a sense of utter futility so overwhelmed Soneri that he found himself lost for words. Angela’s questions led him to reflect on the distrust he aroused among those he still considered his own townsfolk, and on the gulf that now existed between him and them. It was as though all those years of friendship and companionship had been snuffed out, even if their common interest in the affairs of the Rodolfi family could briefly disguise that unpleasant feeling of alienation.
“I would have been better escaping to a seaside resort where no-one knows me. I only like the sea in winter when there’s nobody there apart from those who really love it.”
“It’s going to be hard not to get involved now,” Angela said.
“The mayor is on at me to go and see the maresciallo, but I’m going to stay away from him at all costs. The fact is that there’s nothing to investigate. Palmiro hanged himself and his son, so they say, has shut himself up in the house in the woods where he goes to be alone. Actually, it doesn’t seem at all likely to me that he’s there, otherwise the carabinieri would have been able to locate him. Anyway, these are hardly criminal acts, and if they were serious crimes, they would not be left to a mere maresciallo. Some high-flyer in the carabinieri would have been sent in forthwith.”
“The whole thing stinks,” Angela said.
“Like a rotting carcass. I expect developments.”
“I could work on the lawyer who looks after the Rodolfi affairs, and pass any information on to you.”
“What do you mean, ‘work on the lawyer’?”
“How do you work on a man? You ought to know.”
“Like you’re doing just now, to make me jealous.”
“A waste of time. You never fall for it. However, I have a good relationship with the lawyer in question and I could get him to tell me something. Tomorrow the papers will be full of Palmiro’s suicide.”
“Exactly, and your man of the law will button up.”
“If he stays buttoned up, you’ve no reason to be jealous,” Angela said slyly.
Soneri had no time to put his mobile away before seeing the maresciallo coming towards him. His first thought was to slip back into the bar and pretend he had not seen him, but the maresciallo gave him a wave, compelling Soneri to stop and wait for him.
The officer introduced himself with a jovial smile. “Maresciallo Crisafulli,” he announced with an officer’s precision and a cadet’s stiff pose. He was the same height as the commissario, had dark skin, black hair and bright, sparkling eyes. “They tell me you’re the only man who can find mushrooms in this season,” he said.
“I’m not so sure about that,” Soneri said with a smile, unsure of whether to interpret the remark as friendly or ingenuous.
“I know nothing about them. I can hardly tell the difference between lettuce and tomatoes. I’m a city man, from Naples.”
“So how did you end up here?”
“If you want to get on and earn a bit more, you’ve got to put up with some time in Purgatory. At least it’s quiet round here, and you don’t run risks. Apart from the climate!”
“It’s become a bit more risky of late, has it not?”
The maresciallo glanced over his shoulder before saying, “I am a bit worried about this situation.”
“You’ll know more about it than me.”
“Not at all. When I was talking to the mayor, it occurred to me that I ought to ask your advice, seeing you’re from these parts and you’re off duty at the moment. After all, even if they all respect me, I’m still a carabiniere officer from the south of Italy. You get my point?”
Soneri nodded. “Don’t imagine I’m any better off. The only advantage I have over you is that I understand the dialect and I know the names of the mountains and some of the places. I’ve been away from here too long.”
Crisafulli pointed to the Rivara. “Would you like a coffee?”
Soneri gave a distracted nod before asking, “Have you seen Paride?”
“I haven’t personally, but my colleagues are out looking for him. The family say he’s in his house, but that he’s too upset over his father’s death and won’t answer either the door or the telephone.”
Soneri made no reply as the barman placed a cup of espresso before each of them.
The maresciallo started up again. “What worries me is not so much what has happened to the Rodolfis. It’s all the rest.”
“The village has the feel of a place awaiting sentence,” the commissario said, lighting upon an image connected with the work of both men.
Crisafulli allowed a smile to flicker briefly on his lips. “They’re all scared shitless. They’re afraid of anything that might happen to the Rodolfis; and their well-being is tied up with the fate of the Rodolfi family.”
“They’re in deep trouble now that the old man has hanged himself.”
“Palmiro hasn’t been in charge for some while now. It’s his son who’s been running the business.”
“And once he gets over the shock, he’ll pick himself up and it’s business as usual, isn’t that right?”
The maresciallo drank his coffee in one gulp, put down the cup and looked out at the dying day. “Commissario, maybe it is as you say, but you know perfectly well that it doesn’t add up. Don’t those posters make you wonder? And wasn’t it strange how the old man disappeared, then turned up, and then hanged himself from a noose he made for himself? And what about those gunshots? We’re not deaf.”
“I was witness myself to one of those shots only yesterday. It missed me by a couple of metres.”
“Where?” said the maresciallo in evident alarm.
“Above Boldara,” Soneri said, noting that the maresciallo had no idea where Boldara was.
“You see? And each time we’ve investigated, we have not been able to find one single clue. Never even an empty shell.”
“Listen, Crisafulli, I agree with you that the whole business is troubling, but you know as well as I do that all this is just so much hot air until you have got proof that someone is actually committing a crime.”
“Of course I know that, and that’s exactly why I am asking you for advice, maybe even to give a hand. I am afraid that something really serious is going to happen here, do you understand?” He spoke in a whisper to prevent anyone overhearing. “Prevention is better than cure, don’t you think?”
Soneri nodded. “If you’re sick, you go and consult a doctor, but who is there for people around here to consult?”
“No-one. Maybe I worry too much, but if you could see your way to…”
Soneri finished his coffee, pushed the cup out of his way, put his elbows on the table, leaned over towards Crisafulli and said in a low voice, “What do you know about the Rodolfis?”
“I have been hearing that for a good while salaries have not been paid on time, but each and every one of the people who works for them denies that there’s anything amiss. They say it’s always been that way, that there’s more work than ever, both in the abattoir and in the meat-curing plant. There was talk of speculations on the stock market going badly, but nothing has turned up in reports from colleagues who operate in the financial sector.”
“What about Paride’s son? They say he’s a complete wastrel.”
“People exaggerate. He’s a spoiled brat who squanders money on cars and gets up to various kinds of mischief, but I don’t think he’s any different from other rich men’s sons.”
“Well then, what is there to investigate?” Soneri said, with a touch of relief in his voice. “I said as much to the mayor. It looks to me like a familiar situation. A village where gossip is rife and now it has a couple of mysteries to feed on.”
Crisafulli wriggled uncomfortably in his seat, unconvinced but incapable of putting his doubts into words.
Maini, Rivara and his son were all silent too, giving Soneri the unpleasant feeling of being under observation. The maresciallo rose to his feet, picked up his cap and stretched out his hand. “It’s been a pleasure,” he said, but there was no concealing his disappointment. “Drop by the police station some time.”
The commissario watched him leave, marching out as though he were on a parade ground. He thought about how deeply feelings counted in an enquiry. The problem was that even if your feelings kept you focused, they were liable to evaporate under cross-questioning. As he saw Crisafulli disappear in the mists on the piazza, he imagined his state of mind. He himself had often been in that same condition of anxiety, expecting something dire to happen. It was like waiting for a sneeze that did not come, feeling a symptom without an illness or groping for a handhold before a fall.
His stomach rumbled, causing him to jump to his feet. He looked over at the others and saw the bar in a new light, as if he had just awoken from a deep sleep. He remembered he had had only a light lunch of parmesan and prosciutto, and decided it was time to move on to the Scoiattolo.
Half the dining area was sunk in darkness. Two men were immersed in an intense conversation at one of the few tables which had been laid. Sante had the same worried air as that morning and displayed the same awkward concern. After finishing off their dish of wild boar and polenta, the only other two diners left. Sante was now fluttering nervously around Soneri like a planet on an irregular orbit. Finally, he sat down opposite him, looked hard at him and asked, “What did you do with your mushrooms?”
The commissario was taken aback by the question, particularly since it was spoken in a whisper, as though they were in a sacristy. “I threw them into a ditch,” he said lightly.
He had the impression that Sante breathed a sigh of relief. “People believe that they’re a warning of evil times, and with this business over Palmiro… I’ve never believed all that nonsense myself, but you’re the first person who’s found ‘trumpets of death’ this year, and on the very day he put a rope round his neck.”
“I never thought of you as superstitious. They’re just mushrooms like any others. And they’re very tasty,” Soneri sought to reassure him.
“A lot of people here in the village pull them out of the ground the moment they see them. They say it brings good luck and wards off misfortune.”
“Rubbish!”
Sante stared at him, doubtful but desperate to be convinced. Soneri took out his cigars and offered one to Sante. They lit them from the same match, turning them slowly around the flame and then sitting in silence to savour the aroma. For the moment, no words were needed, but the silence soon became oppressive, and sitting face to face became embarrassing. If Sante chose to remain there, he must have a reason, but Soneri had no inkling of what he wanted to say. Once again, he was dealing with impressions, the very things which tormented Crisafulli. He was sure there was something Sante wanted to talk to him about, but he knew that if he asked him, he would immediately deny it, leaving the commissario, like Crisafulli, burdened by feelings but having no proof.
The arrival of Ida from the kitchen put an end to the awkwardness.
“Not much doing this evening,” Soneri said.
“Everybody’s in such a rush. There’s not been much work for a few weeks now, but I’ve no idea why.”
“A dead period.”
“Well, who knows? There really never are dead periods, it just looks as though people have given up eating. There are even fewer lorry-drivers around. You would swear they’ve changed their routes.”
“And this all happened only recently?”
The two of them looked at each other in silence, until Ida took the initiative. “The problems started when word got out about the Rodolfis.”
“What have they got to do with it?”
“They’re very important here, for the economy especially.”
Soneri nodded, while Ida looked at her husband with growing anxiety. She was clearly in a hurry, but to do what? Sante peered at her nervously, but something prevented him from speaking.
“The money…” he began, but the words seemed to choke him. He blushed and his voice trailed off.
His wife was obviously keen to take up the story, but she bit her tongue. Respect for deep-seated traditions meant that it had to be the husband who did the talking. Sante made one more attempt, but seemed to be restrained by the complexity of what he had to say as well as by some sort of shame. Finally, his wife burst out, “Come on, tell him the whole story.”
Under pressure, the man started to mumble. “I’ve been trying to tell him ever since he arrived.”
The commissario made a gesture to encourage him to go on.
“It’s to do with money,” Sante said.
Another gesture from Soneri, meaning to convey that he had guessed as much all along. “Money or sex,” was the endlessly repeated mantra of Nanetti, head of the forensic squad: that’s what it always came down to.
“In this village, everyone knows everybody else, there’s trust…” Sante began again, following a delicate line of thought which was probably so intricate it could not be set out without some confusion.
Ida gave her husband an angry look, and Soneri too found himself becoming impatient with this stopping and starting, but Sante still needed a long run up before he was able to leap forward.
“We all trust them,” he said, picking his way with great care.
“The fact is, we gave him some money,” Ida said, with an abruptness which sounded like a slap in the face.
Her husband was grateful for her help. “Have you ever heard of ‘nursemaid’ money?” he asked, finally free of embarrassment.
Soneri nodded. “A form of loan.”
“That’s right,” Sante said, pointing with a finger as though the money were lying in front of them on the table.
“And now you’re all worried about your money?”
“We still have trust, but all these rumours…”
“Did you give him a lot of money?”
Sante looked up at his wife, furrowing his brow as though he had endured a stab of pain.
“Yes, a lot,” he said, without specifying the amount. “And we weren’t the only ones,” he added, as though that were an excuse.
“Who else?”
“Many people, more than you could imagine. But there’s no point in you trying to draw up a list, because they’d never tell you.”
“Why should they not?”
“People never talk about their own affairs.”
“But you have.”
“You’re from these parts, even if you’ve no idea what life around here is like nowadays. Besides, we’re relatives, distant relatives, but still relatives.”
The commissario nodded again, knowing he would never have been able to trace the contorted links between the families.
“In spite of that, it’s not easy for me to talk. It’s that the very thought…”
“I don’t see why.”
“Because I feel I’ve made a wretched mess of everything,” Sante burst out, with despair in his eyes.
“You told me you still had trust. Have you lost it now?”
“As long as Palmiro was there… He was the same as us. He spoke in dialect. But now…?”
“And we can’t rest for thinking about how he died,” Ida broke in. “We would never ever have dreamed that a man like Palmiro would have hanged himself.”
“That’s what they always say about suicides.”
“Yes, but you didn’t know the man! He was as much a ladies’ man as when he was in his twenties. Some people would swear that he and his daughter-in-law…”
“Shut up!” Sante tried to interrupt his wife. “What are you saying?”
Ida stopped, but her expression was of out-and-out malice, and this was the most telling of judgments.
“Who was it who asked you for the money, Palmiro or Paride?”
“Paride keeps well away. It was Palmiro who came. It was his job to do the rounds. He’d kept in touch from the days when he started up the dairy business.”
“What guarantees did he offer?”
Sante gave another shrug. “I told you. It’s all to do with trust. We wrote the transactions and the dates down in a notebook and he added his scribble and that was that.”
The commissario’s expression must have shown his concern, because he saw Sante bow his head. “You do know that a mark like that is not worth a thing?”
Sante nodded.
“How long has this been going on?”
“Many years now,” Ida said, accompanying the words with a wave of the hand which was meant to say that it was a long established practice.
“If it’s been going so well for all this time, what makes you so scared now?” the commissario said.
Sante’s expression lightened for a moment, but his dark mood returned as he started speaking. “As I’ve explained, because of Palmiro’s death. Nobody thought… and that son of his who’s never here
… the few times we’ve actually seen him he would speak in big words we couldn’t understand. He is used to discussions with bankers and financiers who handle money all day long. Many of them turned up at his villa and we were expected to bring them food we had made ourselves. We didn’t get on with them.”
“I can understand the question of trust, but to lend money blindly like that…”
Sante heaved a deep sigh and looked at his wife. It seemed that merely talking about it made him the more fearful of impending ruin.
“Palmiro had a way of convincing us. He repeated always the same thing. If we grow, you grow, the whole village grows. Who could quarrel with that? After the war, the poverty here was terrible. He made us feel like traitors if we refused him.”
“Tell him about the interest,” Ida hissed, without looking at her husband.
Sante sighed once more. “Well, he paid more than the banks.”
“Much more?”
“It depends. You had to bargain with him as though you were buying a batch of cheese. If you seemed to hesitate, he would increase the rate he was offering, then he would do the sums in his head and tell you how much you would gain after five, ten or fifteen years. It was hard to resist.”
“He was a right sly one in business,” Ida said, cutting the air with her hand.
“Did you ever see any returns?”
“If you insisted, Palmiro would settle up. It did happen a few times, but in the majority of cases, he wouldn’t let go. ‘If you give me the money for five years more, I’ll raise the rate by half a per cent,’ he would say. Then he would churn out numbers that made your head spin.”
“So you’re saying that no-one withdrew their money?”
“Virtually everyone round here can manage, so the money they gave him was money they were putting by for their children, or to keep themselves in comfort in old age, or just out of prudence. In this village, they’re great savers. They might live in hovels, but having some savings makes them feel more secure.”
Soneri could hear his own father talk of his fears for some “tomorrow” when anything might happen. The peasants always feared hailstones, or drought, or an outbreak of foot and mouth disease. “I’m sure Paride will do the right thing,” were the only words the commissario could find to reassure his hosts.
“Well, let us hope so,” Sante groaned, without conviction.
Soneri rose to go to bed, but Sante’s almost imploring look detained him a minute longer. “What can I do?” he said.
Sante murmured, “Nothing.”